Thank you, Billy

A few weeks before my family arrived in London, we discovered that my grandfather's cousin was buried in Cambridge, England. This is a story of his life, and our visit to his grave.

Thursday morning we boarded the express to Cambridge - about an hour ride. It was then that my dad told us everything he knew about Billy.

My mom's father David - known to me as Grampi - was born in 1921 in Toledo, Ohio. When Grampi was nine, his father died and from then on he lived in a household of women. His sister (my aunt Jane), his mother, and his grandmother.

A couple houses down the street lived his uncle Earl and aunt Edna. They had one child, a boy named Billy, one year younger than Grampi.

They were best friends. Grampi was at their house all the time as they played together, went to school together, and joined each other on family vacations. They were almost raised as brothers.

When World War II started Grampi joined the Merchant Marines erroneously, thinking it was a safer way to serve the country, though the reality was that the German and Japanese subs targeted the merchant supply ships he served on. Shortly thereafter it was Billy's time to enlist. For reasons unknown he picked the Air Force. It is almost a certainty he had never been on an airplane and perhaps had never seen one in person. But that was his choice.

Billy reported for duty and was immediately assigned to a heavy bomber group (B-17s and B-24s) and was sent to a training base in Iowa. What probably surprised Billy is that there weren't any airplanes there. Most of the working planes were already in Europe and the few available for training were set aside for pilots, navigators, and bombardiers.

Billy was going to be a gunner. He'd be firing one of the heavy machine guns positioned on the plane to protect it from enemy fighters. There is no safe place on a bomber but Billy drew the particularly hazardous job of a tail gunner. He would be in an isolated location at the end of the plane, subjected to fire from planes approaching from the rear.

It's possible Billy completed his training without leaving the ground. He shipped out to England and joined the 715^th Heavy Bomber Squadron in the 448^th Bomber Group. He flew out of a base in England and his missions were across Europe.

By early 1944 the bomber missions became a bit less dangerous as in many cases there were no German air born fighters to attack the bombers - Germany was running out of airplanes. The defenses from the ground were fierce as anti-aircraft guns filled the sky with exploding shells of flak. Imagine an explosion going off in star burst fashion and dispersing hundreds of small razor sharp pieces of metal with the intent of ripping into enemy aircraft.

May 9^th, 1944 Billy's plane took off for a mission that was probably to Germany. It was considered a "milk run" by the crew. A mission that was to a location suspected to have light defenses was called a "milk run" as it was as easy as delivering milk (remember in those days milkmen delivered milk to people's houses). At the completion of the mission the crew all tumbled out of the plane and the captain was completing roll call when he discovered that Billy was not there. Shouting to the rear of the plane did not produce Billy. Finally the captain went back to look for him and found Billy slumped over his machine gun. The only mark on him was a fingerprint sized hole in the center of his chest. A piece of flak no bigger than a nickel had found it's mark. Unknown to his fellow crewmen, Staff Sergeant William E. Jackson Jr had silently bled to death, alone in the tail of a B-24, somewhere over Europe.

The news of Billy's death was a blow to his family back in Toledo, just as similar news was devastating families all over America. But as tough as the news was, they all dreaded the phone call that they knew would soon come.

As Billy served in Europe, Grampi was traveling the world on freighters taking supplies to military bases. Whenever Grampi was back in his home port of New York City he always made a short telephone call home. There were two reasons for the call. The first was to let everyone know he was safe, the second was to ask about Billy.

My aunt Jane happened to be the person who answered the phone the day that call came. As Grampi was beginning to tell her where he had just returned from she interrupted him, as she couldn't bear to be asked the question. "Davy, he's gone. He was killed on a mission." According to Aunt Jane there were no more words spoken, just the sounds of Grampi mourning the death of his best friend.

Billy, like most American dead at the time, was placed in a temporary grave somewhere in England. A year later the war was over. Billy's death affected the family in different ways. His parents struggled to accept it, and moved to Florida hoping a fresh start would help.

Grampi returned from his service and announced that though his immediate family still lived in Toledo, Billy's death meant there was nothing to keep him there. His military friend was in route to Muncie, Indiana to pursue a degree, and Grampi joined him.

Families of US soldiers who died in Europe had the option of having the remains of their family member brought back to the states. Edna and Earl elected not to do that. By the mid 1950s there was a movement to consolidate the American dead who at that point were scattered in cemeteries all over England. In 1954 a permanent American Cemetery was established outside Cambridge and the 3,800 American dead still buried in England were brought there.

Around 1960 Uncle Earl died and a couple years later Aunt Edna made the trip to Cambridge to visit Billy. Outside of this, we do now know if he has had any visitors.

The train arrived in Cambridge and after a short taxi ride we were at the cemetery.

As you can see, it is beautiful and meticulously maintained. It was organized in such a fashion that a visitor could easily find their next of kin. A reflection pond leads to a small chapel, with graves on the left and a wall listing the names of missing soldiers on the right. After a visit to the chapel we made our way to Billy's grave.

We formed a semi-circle around Billy's white marble tombstone. My mom turned and faced Billy's grave and simply said, "Thank you, Billy." We all repeated her words in unison.

As we walked away it occurred to me it had been nearly 50 years since anyone has visited Billy's grave. And given how time erases connections and memories, we could be the last family to ever visit. I am glad that we heard his story, and were able to make a visit that Grampi never had the chance to make.

Billy's story will eventually be forgotten, as many of our stories will. But I think of it as only one of thousands of World War II stories in existence. If his story does not live on, I hope that a similar one does, and that people in future generations will be able to listen and gain some sort of understanding of the sacrifices made.